Kathy, we have literally tried every method of hatching under the sun. Wet/dry, higher temps, lower temps, stand them up, lay them down and we really have only learned a little. We can chase some things down as follows: If you have big fat chicks that fill up the egg, you will have lots of quitters. Raise the temp a little bit or lower the humidity if over 40% and these will stop and you will get smaller chicks that don't quit as much. I believe some people push the humidity to high and you get big juicy fat chicks that cannot move in the egg. Low humidity, however, during hatching is a killer. I really don't think it can be to high unless you have dripping water. We hatched a greater percentage of eggs standing up this year than we have ever hatched lying down (totally against the stated factual norm, but true never the less). We ran temps a half a degree higher this year and at first hatched all healthy chicks with no leg/feet problems. Then in the last few weeks they appeared again. I believe this issue may be somewhat related to protein levels in feed and the number of eggs laid by a hen. FBC has stated this as well.
